Positive Behaviour Support

Affinity Trust’s support for people with learning disabilities is based on person-centred approaches and our values, especially respect.

Across the organisation, we follow the principles of Positive Behaviour Support, which says that services should be:

person-centred

based on an understanding of people’s behaviour

mindful of people’s preferences around communication

as least restrictive as possible

working to enhance people’s quality of life.

Research shows that Positive Behaviour Support improves the quality of life of people supported, and helps reduce the occurrence of behaviours that challenge.

Positive Behaviour Support aims to do two main things:

understand the person’s behaviour and communication by assessing the physical and social environment in which the behaviour occurs, taking into account the perspectives of all stakeholders

use that understanding to develop, implement and evaluate a personalised system of support that will enhance the quality of life for the person supported and other stakeholders.

It consists of three main elements:

The adoption of values that encourage social inclusion and enhanced quality of life, and that discourage restrictive practices

The use of theory and evidence to aid assessment and understanding of what the person is communicating through their behaviour that challenges

The use of data to inform strategies to address the behaviour, evaluate its impact and monitor the longer-term progress achieved.

All our support staff learn about the principles of Positive Behaviour Support through their PROACT-SCIPr-UK® training, which forms part of their induction. When staff are supporting people with challenging behaviour, they will also receive training on how to keep themselves and others safe.

All our divisional directors, operations managers and support managers are trained in how to support their staff after incidents of challenging behaviour.

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